


what falls from the gods

by mardisoir



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Feels, Complicated Relationships, Modern AU, Non-Binary Jean Prouvaire, Other, Past Relationship(s), mentions of past violence and suicidal ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-07 12:35:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15219275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mardisoir/pseuds/mardisoir
Summary: Really, Grantaire is only a little surprised when he answers a knock at the door late on a Friday night and finds Jehan Prouvaire on his front step.





	what falls from the gods

Really, Grantaire is only a little surprised when he answers a knock at the door late on a Friday night and finds Jehan Prouvaire on his front step.  
  
“Hello, R,” they smile up at him and he doesn’t have to think about it before he’s stepping back to let them in and being caught up immediately in a fierce hug. Jehan still has to push up on their toes to wrap their arms around Grantaire’s neck, they’re small and warm and their hair is soft and sweet smelling when it brushes against his unshaven cheek.  
  
“I missed you,” Jehan mumbles wetly against Grantaire’s neck and he holds on a little tighter.  
  
They brought a bag, he notes, after the hug ends and Jehan has shut the front door and tugged Grantaire into his scruffy little living room by the wrist. An ancient tapestry carpet bag furred with loose threads, a silk scarf holding together what a broken zip has failed to contain. Jehan deposits it casually on the couch and tugs Grantaire through to the tiny kitchen.  
  
“I need tea,” they plead, eyes big and shiny and only a little red-rimmed. “I took the train.”  
  
Grantaire grimaces sympathetically and fills the kettle. He hasn’t said anything yet, he realises, as Jehan perches elfin-like on the lone wobbly stool in front of the window.  


“How’d you find me?”  
  
Jehan shoots him a reproachful look. “With some difficulty,” they reply.  
  
“Sorry.” He knows he doesn’t sound sorry. Grantaire reaches for matches to light the hob, remembers he ran out yesterday. Fishes a pink plastic lighter out of the top drawer.  
  
“I called in a favour,” Jehan avoids his eyes, fiddling with their overlong sleeves. “Claquesous likes me well enough, although I think I owe him now. I’m considering changing my name and leaving the country too.”  
  
Grantaire decides he’s going to ignore that.  
  
“Should I expect everyone else to turn up on my doorstep as well?”  
  
“No, it’s just me.”  
  
There’s an awkward pause. Grantaire stares hard at the kettle like he can make the water boil faster through strength of will alone.  
  
“I didn’t tell anyone I was coming,” Jehan says quietly, and it’s a confession as much as a reassurance. “They’d have all wanted to come too, or told me not to.”  
  
Grantaire deliberately does not let himself think about who would have wanted to come and who would have insisted they left him to his self-imposed exile.  
  
“I wrote to you,” he finds himself saying, offering it up like an apology. “To Bossuet and Joly as well.”  
  
“Mm,” Jehan hums. “I appreciate the romanticism of a handwritten letter as much as the next person but it doesn’t really count as an effective form of communication without a return address.”  
  
Grantaire shrugs, that had been the point after all. He plucks a box of herbal tea from the back of a cupboard, unopened and squashed. Something he’d bought without thinking, used to keeping it around for Jehan and Musichetta.  
  
They drink the tea and Jehan talks about their journey, the delays on the Central Line, how much colder it is in London than Paris. They don’t talk about why they’ve come and Grantaire doesn’t ask. They also don’t talk about any of their friends, about what they’re doing, how they’ve been. Grantaire doesn’t want to know. It’s nice just having Jehan there, the brightness of their eyes, the curl of their mouth, the clink of their bracelets when they gesture emphatically. It’s like seeing in technicolour suddenly, where before everything had been sepia and he hadn’t even noticed.  
  
Jehan refuses to take the bed, instead building a nest of spare blankets and pillows on the couch and curling up in them. They fall asleep within minutes. Grantaire hovers in the doorway, toothbrush in hand, watching the rise and fall of their breathing. The room seems empty around them, a stage bereft of props.  
  
Grantaire hadn’t brought much with him when he left. A few novels, his sketchbooks, some clothes- all too big after his time in the hospital and what came after but slowly starting to fit again. This tiny, draughty apartment had been a refuge over the past year but now, with Jehan casting light across the peeling wallpaper, the cobwebbed corners, it feels small and rundown and tired. 

 

Grantaire sleeps poorly that first night. He’s up with the dawn and heads out to the studio for the earliest class. He pushes himself harder than usual until his muscles burn and his breath shakes in his lungs. Madame shoots him a concerned look but he slips out with the crowd before she can corner him.

It’s cold, even for October. The early morning sunshine is too watery to chase the night’s chill from the streets. Grantaire gets off the tube a stop early so he can pick up vegan pastries from the tiny local bakery he likes and when he gets back to the flat Jehan is stirring beneath a pile of blankets.  
  
“Breakfast,” Grantaire dangles the bag over their head, close enough to entice them with the scent of still-warm bread. Jehan’s head emerges from beneath a cushion, their hair a magnificent birds nest and one cheek rumpled with pillow creases.  
  
“Smells fantastic,” they mumble through a yawn.  
  
Grantaire makes too much coffee and pours it into chipped bowls. He passes one to Jehan and curls up on the end of the couch, fumbling through the abandoned bakery bag for a croissant.  
  
Jehan’s already claimed the only pain aux raisins. “S’good,” they smile with a lap full of crumbs.  
  
They eat quietly watching the morning light slowly creep across the floorboards.  
  
Jehan has finished their coffee and gone back for more, blanket wrapped around their shoulders and trailing behind them like a cape, when they finally sit up and notice Grantaire’s sloppy sweater-and-tights attire.  
  
“You’ve been dancing,” they exclaim, delighted. Grantaire hides his face in his bowl and shrugs. “That’s wonderful!”  
  
It’s nigh impossible to resist the full brunt of Jehan’s enthusiasm, Grantaire knows. Has tried and failed many times.  
  
“Physical therapist had me doing yoga.”  
  
“You hate yoga.”  
  
“I know. I had to find something else, they didn't approve of boxing.”  
  
Jehan’s smile is only a little sad around the edges. They wriggle around to lean against the arm of the couch and deposit their feet in Grantaire’s lap.  
  
“Jehan,” Grantaire says, rubbing at the ball of their foot beneath their floral-print socks.  
  
“R,” Jehan replies, arching a lazy eyebrow. The expression sits strangely on their face. It’s a learned tic, borrowed from someone else.  


It’s that, more than anything else, that makes him finally ask, “Why are you here?”  
  
“To see you.”  
  
“Why else?”  
  
They’re quiet for a minute, eyes distant. “I had to get away for a little while.”  
  
Grantaire hums.  
  
“It’s nice here,” they say.  
  
“It’s not.” London is cold and dreary and grey and the wind is rattling Grantaire’s windowpane.  
  
“It’s nice _here_ ,” they insist, curling closer into his side. Grantaire wraps an arm around their waist.  
  
“What happened?”  
  
Jehan sighs, their breath warm against his neck. “We broke up.”  
  
“Permanently?”  
  
“Mm.”  
  
“Huh.” It’s what Grantaire expected to hear, but it’s still a shock.  
  
“You sound surprised.”  
  
“I am, I suppose. You were so in love.” _You fought so hard.  
_  
“Sometimes,” Jehan says, fingers curling in the front of Grantaire’s t-shirt, “love isn’t enough.”  
  
Grantaire laughs. It’s a terrible sound, like something dying. “Yeah,” he agrees. “You’re not wrong.”

  

Grantaire doesn’t ask how long Jehan plans on staying and they don’t offer an answer. The two of them fall into an easy rhythm, eating breakfast together most mornings before Grantaire goes off to work and Jehan heads out into the city to do whatever they’re doing with their time all day.  
  
“Writing,” they say when Grantaire asks. “And walking. And visiting the galleries.”  
  
Jehan is usually home before Grantaire and more often than not they’re clattering around in the tiny kitchen, filling the flat with enticing aromas, the scent of home cooked food. They never bring alcohol back with them and they don’t suggest going out either, seeming content to sit around in the evenings with Grantaire and read or talk or just doze in companionable silence.  
  
“I’m thinking of going to Highgate this Saturday,” they say one Thursday night, mopping curry from their plate with the last piece of naan. “Would you like to come with me?”  
  
“To the cemetery?” Grantaire asks.  
  
“Of course.”  
  
“Why not.”  
  
Jehan’s smile is sunlight breaking through clouds on a spring day. A golden flash of light and heat, it warms the darkness that lives in Grantaire’s chest. He had forgotten. He hasn’t seen enough of it the past few weeks.  
  
“Do you want to watch a film?” Jehan asks, once the dishes have been cleared and the leftovers put away.  
  
“Sure, but I need to shower.” Grantaire rolls his shoulders, stretching until his back pops. Jehan wrinkles their nose at the sound.  
  
“Alright, let me just clean my teeth first.”  
  
The brush them together standing over the tiny sink, Jehan nudging into his space so they can spit, laughing when Grantaire drips toothpaste down his t-shirt and swears. He kicks them out so he can shower but they sit just outside the bathroom door anyway, regaling him with a story about someone they’d met on the tube that morning who’d told them about the Highgate Vampire. In all the time Grantaire has been in London he hasn’t once struck up a conversation with a friendly stranger, only exchanged glares with grumpy commuters. Jehan seems to attract them like flies to honey, but it’s not surprising, he supposes.  
  
Once he’s dry and dressed they settle on the couch, Grantaire’s laptop propped on the rickety coffee table.  
  
“What shall we watch?” Grantaire asks and Jehan shrugs, pulling their knees up and tucking their feet underneath themself like a cat. They’re wearing one of Grantaire’s sweaters and it’s much too big, falling halfway down their thighs and bunching up around their skinny wrists.  
  
“I don’t mind.”  
  
Grantaire puts on a comedy he’s been meaning to check out and they settle down to watch. Fifteen minutes in Jehan wriggles around so they’re lying against his side, their head on his shoulder. Grantaire drags the duvet they’ve been sleeping under off the back of the couch and wraps it around them both. Ten minutes after that they’re both asleep.  
  
Grantaire wakes up in the dark. At some point he must have shifted around on the couch because he’s lying along the length of it instead of sitting up. Jehan has moved with him, their slight frame heavy with sleep is pinning Grantaire in place, but he’s so warm he can’t bring himself to care.  
  
The laptop is powered down but in the dim glow of the streetlight outside filtering through the window he can see the clock on the wall. It’s an hour out, he hasn’t changed it yet. It’s three am.  
  
Jehan stirs where they’re sprawled across his chest and Grantaire realises he’s slipped one hand under their shirt while he slept, his palm spanning the width of their ribs. He can feel them breathing. They make a soft protesting sound when he moves to extricate himself.  
  
“Don’t go,” they mumble, wriggling closer, one arm slung around his neck. “You’re warm.”  
  
Outside of the blankets the air is frigid and Grantaire feels a sudden rush of guilt that Jehan’s been sleeping in here all this time when his own room is so much warmer. He sits up carefully, not dislodging Jehan where they’re clinging to his shoulders but using their tight grip on him to his benefit when he scoops them up and carries them carefully into his bedroom. Grantaire sets them down on the bed and pulls his covers up over their shoulders.  
  
He’s turning to leave, to go back and sleep on the couch, when a hand shoots out and catches hold of his wrist.  
  
“Stay,” Jehan says, their voice hazy with sleep but their eyes clear. “Please.”  
  
Grantaire moves around to the other side of the bed to slide under the blankets and Jehan rolls over so they’re face to face, heads close on the pillows.  
  
“I really missed you,” they say quietly.  
  
“I’m sorry.” Grantaire reaches out and tangles his fingers with theirs where they’re lying on the sheets between them. “I missed you too.”  
  
“I understand why you had to go,” they say, “I really do, believe me.” Grantaire wants to ask, aches to know what happened that lead Jehan to his door with a bag full of clothes and no return ticket. “I just hate thinking you were on your own, all that time.”  
  
“I’m ok,” Grantaire says, squeezing their fingers. “I’m fine.”  
  
“You _died_ ,” Jehan says and their voice breaks.  
  
“Only for like, two minutes,” Grantaire’s attempt at levity isn’t helping and he feels like the worst person in the world when Jehan’s eyes fill with tears.  
  
“You died,” they say, the hand not curled around his coming to rest on his chest over his shirt, right where the scar is. “They shot you. You fucking died for him and you nearly didn’t come back.” And then they’re swallowing sobs and Grantaire is hauling them closer, murmuring soothing nonsense sounds and rubbing their back as their shoulders shake.  
  
“Shh, it’s alright, I’m right here,” he presses his cheek against theirs and they wrap their arms around his neck. “It’s ok, I’m fine. We’re fine.”  
  
Grantaire holds them until they stop crying and then keeps holding on as they both drift off to sleep.  
  
They wake up tangled together in a pocket of gorgeous heat. Grantaire is curled around Jehan’s back and they’re holding tightly on to his arm that’s draped over their waist.  
  
“I’m gonna be late,” Grantaire slurs into the mess of their hair and Jehan makes an unhappy noise and wriggles back into his chest.  
  
“Take the day off.”  
  
“Can’t,” Grantaire sighs and regretfully rolls out of bed.  
  
Jehan flinches at the sudden gust of cold air and huddles down under the covers. They pout sleepily while Grantaire gets ready for work but by the time he’s dressed they’re out again, eyelids flickering as they dream.  
  
Grantaire presses a kiss to their forehead and shuts the door quietly when he leaves.   
  
They don’t talk about it.  
  
Grantaire brings home pizza and they spend Friday night watching Disney films and avoiding the subject. At around midnight, once Lilo and Stitch is over and they’re both pretending they didn’t get choked up, Grantaire stretches and yawns.  
  
“I’m heading to bed,” he says, standing and scratching his stomach under his shirt.  
  
“Goodnight,” Jehan says, hunched down on the sofa and fiddling with the edge of the blanket that they’ve wrapped around their shoulders again.  
  
“Are you coming?” Grantaire asks. They look up, surprised. He raises an eyebrow. “You can bring your cape.”  


In bed they fit together like two halves of two wholes. Not one thing, originally, but their ragged edges line up well enough. 

“So many times I wished I’d fallen in love with you,” Grantaire murmurs, twirling a strand of silken hair around one finger.  
  
Jehan sighs softly. “I don’t know if that would have helped either one of us, to be honest.”  
  
Grantaire presses a soft kiss to the top of Jehan’s head and they twist in his arms, shifting around and sitting up to straddle his thighs. He lets his hands fall to rest on their hips, one thumb stroking over the soft sliver of skin between leggings and shirt.  
  
It feels like something a long time coming when Jehan cups his face in gentle hands, leans in close, their hair falling around their faces like a curtain. Their mouth is incredibly soft, the kiss impossibly delicate.  
  
“I do love you, R,” Jehan whispers, warm breath and wet lips dragging against his own.  
  
“I know,” Grantaire’s hands slip around and press against their back, pulling them in close, fingertips gliding along their spine. “I know.”  


 

Highgate is beautiful in the autumn sunshine.  
  
Grantaire follows Jehan in a winding route along near-invisible paths overgrown with grass and ivy, ducking under low-hanging trees, stepping past crumbling ancient gravestones and shiny new marble ones. They skirt around Marx’s looming head, a black and white cat curled comfortably beneath his chin, and pause in the middle of the gravel path when a murder of crows clatter out of the branches overhead, calling to each other in hoarse voices.  
  
“No vampire to be seen,” Grantaire says, slumping onto a nearby bench.  
  
“Come back after dark,” Jehan says with a smile, looking out across the tree-line. “If you dare.”

“I’ll pass.”  


Jehan joins him on the bench and Grantaire thinks that they are startlingly lovely in the amber afternoon light.  
  
The silence stretches between them, a long, pregnant pause. Grantaire knows what’s coming even before Jehan opens their mouth.  
  
Finally, they ask, “Do you know why I wasn’t there that day?”  
  
“I was always just glad you weren’t.”  
  
“I was supposed to be. I was ready to leave, to come and meet everyone. But Parnasse called me. He said it was an emergency, that he needed me. So I went. And he was fine. But then everything went to shit and Feuilly nearly lost an eye and Combeferre and Bahorel got arrested and-” they cut themself off. “I found out, afterwards, that he knew the police were planning something big. He didn’t tell me at the time, didn’t think it was important. He just wanted to make sure I didn’t go.” Jehan’s eyes are dry but their lip trembles. “I couldn’t-”  
  
Grantaire wraps an arm around their shoulders, pulls them in close. His chest hurts, a phantom ache.  
  
“It wasn’t the only reason, things weren’t… great. But I couldn’t forgive him for that.” Jehan breathes out shakily and rests their cheek on Grantaire’s shoulder. “I love him,” they say, “I think I’ll always love him. But I can’t trust him.”  
  
Because it’s London in October it starts to drizzle as they leave the cemetery. It’s gotten heavier by the time they’ve given up waiting for the lift and climbed all three flights of stairs out of the tube station.  
  
“We could make a run for it,” Jehan suggests while they’re sheltering in a doorway just outside, watching car headlights light up the puddles.  
  
Grantaire protests, “Joly will telekinetically murder us both all the way from Paris if we catch hypothermia.” But when Jehan takes hold of his wrist and dashes out into the rain, he follows.  
  
They're both soaked to the skin by the time they make it back to the flat, Jehan’s hair plastered to their back, Grantaire’s a sodden mass of curls. Jehan kicks out of their boots and strips their clothes off the moment they’re through the front door, shirt landing on the floorboards with a wet slap.

In spite of, or perhaps because of, Jehan’s wild and unpredictable fashion sense, they are the kind of person who is the most themself when they’re naked. Grantaire watches as they wander through the flat without a care, mostly appreciative, slightly envious. He’s the kind of person who feels self-conscious unclothed when he’s alone, in the dark, with the curtains shut.

Jehan reappears with two towels and throws one to Grantaire where he’s dripping just inside the hallway. They start drying their hair, standing in the muted evening light, and Grantaire feels his fingers itch. They look like a Degas. He wants to paint for the first time in two years. Oils, he thinks, to capture every scar, every beauty mark, every faded stick and poke tattoo; or pastels, soft-edged and warm. 

“You really will catch a cold if you stay in those wet clothes.” Jehan breaks into his reverie, cold fingers sliding under his hoodie and t-shirt and skimming ticklishly up his sides.  
  
It’s a terrible line but Jehan just grins when he points this out and continues to urge him out of his clothes.

They fuck half against the wall and half on the floor, Jehan’s damp hair sticking to Grantaire’s neck. Jehan smells like petrichor and smoke and Grantaire’s fingers dig crescent marks into their hips as he tries to keep them both from falling. They shower together after, the bathroom fills with steam and the pipes rattle an ominous background melody and Jehan pauses halfway through working conditioner through Grantaire’s tangled curls to drop to their knees and take him in their mouth. 

They’re stumbling, sex drunk and flushed by the time they make it to the bed, just as wet as when they arrived home but warmer now. Grantaire spreads Jehan out on his rumpled sheets and kisses them, their mouth, their throat, the hollow of their hips.  
  
The last time is slower. Jehan touches him like they want to climb inside Grantaire’s chest and make a home there, restring the damaged muscle and sinew, shine the scar tissue away. They don’t let go when its over, staying close, pressing against him in the dark.

“I have to go back home,” Jehan speaks it into the quiet of the room and suddenly it’s real; the end, looming. “And I want you to come with me.”  
  
Grantaire wonders if Jehan can hear the defeat in their own voice, the knowledge that they’re fighting a futile battle.

“I can’t.”

“Everyone misses you,” Jehan says. “They need you back, too.”  
  
Grantaire pulls away and moves to sit on the edge of the bed, rubbing his hands over his face. He’d naïvely hoped they could avoid this.  
  
“I already died for the cause once, what more do they want from me.”  
  
“That’s not funny.”  
  
“Sorry.” He is. Grantaire has been nothing but sorry for years now.

“You didn’t die for the cause,” Jehan says and they sound so tired.  
  
“No.” Grantaire doesn’t know if he’s agreeing with them or protesting this entire line of conversation.  


“You stepped in front of that bullet for Enjolras.”  
  
The name is like an invocation. Grantaire shuts his eyes. If it was anyone else, he’d leave. Walk away, out into the street, never come back. He’s already done it once.  
  
“Grantaire.”  
  
“I don't know what you want me to tell you.”  
  
Jehan makes a broken sound that's not quite a laugh. When he looks back at them they’re sitting against the headboard with wet eyes and an angry twist to their mouth.  


“Tell me you won’t do it again.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Tell me you value your life more than that.”  


“More than his?”  
  
“If you like,” Jehan spreads their hands, entreating. “If that's how you need to quantify it.”  
  
Grantaire can't speak around the lump in his throat.  
  
“Is it really about him? Still? Was it ever?” Jehan asks, “Did you want to die for him? Or did you just want to die?”  
  
“Don’t.”  
  
“Come home with me, R,” Jehan pleads. “You’re not happy here. We could be happy.”  
  
Grantaire shakes his head, the words won’t come. He can’t do that. Not to Jehan. The best he can offer them is a life without him in it, without another weight pulling them down. But he reaches for them, anyway, and they don’t pull away.

 

Before he even opens his eyes, Grantaire can tell they’re gone. The flat is quiet in the way it only ever is when he’s alone. Every trace of Jehan has been wiped clean, no warm weight in his bed, no clothes strewn across the chair in front of the bedroom window, no mug in the sink.   
  
Grantaire stands in the hallway and feels the absence sink into his bones.  
  
Then he sees it. On the coffee table, an envelope, unsealed, with a single ticket inside and Jehan’s handwriting scrawled across the front.

 _come back,_ it reads. _even as a shadow, even as a dream.  
_   
Outside the window the sky is grey and flat. Wind whistles through the cracked frame.

Grantaire knows what he has to do.

 

**Author's Note:**

> _“Come back. Even as a shadow, Even as a dream.”_
> 
> _“This is nobility in a man: to bear what falls from the gods and not say No.”_
> 
> Euripides, Anne Carson - Grief Lessons
> 
> I wrote this in the autumn of 2016 when I was very homesick for London and it shows.  
> Originally this was part of a longer fic that included the events prior to Grantaire leaving Paris but the more I tried to write it the less it worked, so here it is as a standalone instead.


End file.
